


The Stroke of Midnight

by DoubleNegative



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Arthur Conan Doyle Canon References, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Masturbation, Masturbation Interruptus, Sexual Fantasy, Sharing a Bed, but not enough of them to tag the story with
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 02:42:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10401942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleNegative/pseuds/DoubleNegative
Summary: A private reminisce about a pivotal moment.





	

That long, strange night in a dead woman’s bedroom at Stoke Moran was, to the best of my recollection, the first time Holmes and I had passed a night in the same room. It would stand out in my recollection for that reason alone, even without the more gruesome aspects of the surrounding case to lend it weight.

In these private pages at least I may be honest--more honest than I have ever been with my readers, to whom I purport to give the unadorned facts--and admit that a night side-by-side with Holmes was the subject of my dearest and most secret fantasies, though it was one aspect of my life I would prefer not to see tangled up with our cases. And yet with Holmes perhaps it was inevitable, even fitting.

What a hopeless fool I was, then! So blinded by my own helpless, hapless desire that I could see nothing beyond my own nose. No wonder at all that Holmes so often bemoaned my shortsightedness and my inability to fit together even the most obvious of puzzle pieces, when I did not realize--

Well, I am getting ahead of myself. How I do ramble when I’ve no fear of an editor’s pen to rein me in.

So--we waited the night in Miss Stoner’s bedroom, side by side, in a bed narrow enough that our shoulders brushed every time I shifted. The seconds ticked by, minutes into hours, with nothing but the soft susurrus of Holmes’s breathing and the pounding of my own heart to disturb the stillness. In the darkness, in the silence, every sense but touch faded away. The headboard at my back, the mattress beneath me, and Holmes so close beside me that I could feel the heat of his body even through our layers of linen and wool. People think him cold, my Holmes, but he is always so warm: a fire in the grate on a winter’s day, a mug of tea to wrap one’s hands around.

My earlier fears faded as the night rolled on without event--perhaps Miss Stoner’s worries had a more prosaic explanation after all--and by the time the great clock in the hall struck two, my mind had wandered almost entirely from the task at hand.

That evening was nothing like my well-worn fantasies, but in my weakness I could not help turning it along those paths, if only in my mind. How easy it would be, in the close darkness, to reach out my hand, and let it rest on Holmes’s thigh. In my mind, I had no fear of rejection or discovery. In my mind, Holmes’s hand settled on top of my own, firm and decisive, to sweep away the last of my hesitance. In my mind we leaned closer, curving towards each other till our lips met and I tasted on Holmes’s tongue a desire that mirrored my own. Holmes would know my questions, as he always did, before I asked them, and he would answer them with the touches I longed for.

The clock struck three and I came back to myself with a start, a little ashamed at having let myself drift so far, with Holmes so perceptive and so close. I dared not speak--he had made very clear our need for perfect silence--but I prayed that he would dismiss any quickness in my breath or pulse as fear and nothing more.

Holmes himself shifted uncomfortably beside me, in uncharacteristic impatience, and the accompanying dip in the mattress momentarily pressed us together from shoulder to elbow. Holmes sighed, ever so faintly, and for the briefest second I would swear he leaned in closer still. And then the light of lantern flashed up through the ventilator and the moment passed and the case consumed my entire attention once more.

I need not rehash the details of that case here; in that matter, at least, I was entirely honest with my readers, and in any event I would rather not dwell upon the grisly manner of Dr. Roylott’s death, which was as disturbing as it was just, and which cast a shadow over Holmes for several days afterward.

I found myself in a gray mood of my own, over the next few days, though I am ashamed to admit it was for nothing so noble as a troubled conscience. No, I found myself haunted by the phantom presence of Holmes in the bed beside me. How wide my narrow bed seemed without him in it, and how empty, though it had never known his presence. We had not even so much as dozed in each other’s presence that night, and yet the memory of his weight beside me on Miss Stoner’s bed mocked me even as a I strove for sleep in my own, evening after lonely evening.

After three nights of such fruitless longing, I could withstand temptation no longer. Under normal circumstances, I resisted the urge to think of Holmes while I touched myself; it felt like an intrusion and left a bitter taste in my mouth. But this time I could not have stopped myself for any power in the world.

I lay back against my pillows and rucked up my night shirt, taking my time now that I was finally about to succumb. I let myself dream that we had passed the night in that nearby inn instead of Stoke Moran, and had, with the mysterious logic of the imagination, found ourselves sharing a single bed. My hand drifted down over my chest and abdomen and I imagined it was Holmes. I closed my eyes, the better to see his elegant musician’s hands in place of my rough, broad ones. He touched me with a confidence I longed for, a firm assurance I had not known from any woman, and I shuddered as I finally wrapped my hand around my prick and pretended it was his. How might he have me, I wondered--would he take his time or did he hurry, spurred on by the urgency of mounting pleasure? Would he spit in his palm to slick the way, or lift his hand to my hungry mouth and let me drag my tongue along every one of those mesmerizing fingers? My mouth watered to taste him everywhere: forehead to fingertips, collarbone to cockhead, the nape of his neck to the curve of his instep.

Holmes had still been rustling about when I retired to bed around midnight, a fact which might ordinarily have deterred me, but my army days had left me confident that I could take my pleasure silently. I pushed up into my own fist, and raised the other hand to my hair, twisting my fingers through the short strands and tugging lightly, as I wished Holmes might. Perhaps he would mark me as I desired to mark him, scattering love-bites across my shoulders and baring his pale smooth neck to my mouth and teeth. I could not suppress the gasp that escaped me at the image of purpling marks tucked below his high collars, the evidence of our passion known to the two of us alone. My hand drifted from my hair to my throat, and I grazed my fingers along the tendons there, imagining Holmes doing the same as he looked in the mirror the next morning.

I slowed my hand deliberately, determined to draw this indulgence out before I returned my thoughts to propriety. My back arched as I pressed my shoulders into the mattress, letting my hips kick up to meet my fist, still imagining Holmes stretched out beside me, hand on my prick and mouth to my ear. I had never heard his voice pitched low for a lover, but in that moment I was sure I could hear it, and feel the humid puff of his breath against my over-sensitized skin. I imagined caressing him, smoothing my hands over his bare chest and swiping my thumbs over his peaked nipples. I heard him gasp and I gasped his name in answer--too urgent, too sudden to muffle, as the pleasure pooled between my legs.

Too late did I realize how loud that gasp might sound in an otherwise-quiet flat, and too late did I realize Holmes’s rustling had gotten nearer and louder, till it was outside my very door--and then that same door swung open to reveal Holmes himself.

Panic takes us in strange ways, and in my shock I could not manage to cover myself, nor even to remove my hand from between my legs. Yet I registered with astounding clarity the hectic stain on his cheeks and the way his tongue darted out to moisten parted lips.

 _“Watson_ ,” he said, barely louder than a breath and yet clearer than any shout. He took a half step closer, and reached out his hand. I could not tear my eyes from his. “Watson, I--”

His voice was rough, and lower than I had ever heard it outside my own heated imaginings. Another step, and his hands moved, impossibly, to the tie of his dressing gown. “Please,” he said. “Please, let me?”

And there, I suppose, is one more thing about which I have been utterly honest with my readers: I have never been able to deny Sherlock Holmes his desires. 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Round 7 of "Come at Once," thus: written very rapidly and given only the quickest of betas by redscudery. (Thank you, thank you!) My prompt was "after midnight." I was originally going jump off from that Valley of Fear quote about sleeping in the same room as a lunatic, but Valley of Fear is long and time is short, and in the end I couldn’t resist the already-familiar sexual tension of Helen Stoner’s darkened bedroom.
> 
> ...also, this is now the third Come At Once fic (out of four!) with zero on-screen orgasms. Sorry, gents.


End file.
